China influencing leading British universities, documentary claims

Leading British universities have been influenced by Chinese agents, with diplomatic and unofficial pressure resulting in censorship on campus, according to a Channel 4 documentary. The Dispatches documentary, Secrets and Power: China in the UK, alleges that the University of Nottingham closed its School of Contemporary Chinese Studies in 2016 in response to pressure from Beijing. The former head of the institute, Prof Steve Tsang, has openly criticised the Chinese Communist party (CCP) on several occasions, but said that university management asked him not to speak to the media during Xi Jinping's visit to the UK in 2015. The saga…